SEVENTEEN stone builder decorator Peter Balcombe told police in an interview he did not intend to kill his wife but wanted to make her say sorry for telling him he was sexually inadequate.

Balcombe has denied murdering his wife Eunice at their Stratton Road home in Pewsey on December 21 last year.

He sat in Bristol Crown Court today with his head lowered and appeared to be on the point of crying as tapes were played of his interview with police.

The court heard him say: "It was me trying to discuss the problem we had and all she would do was look at me and say I was inadequate.

"I just wanted her to apologise and say sorry, let's work it out but it didn't happen."

The court heard that Balcombe had walked their three children to school and then returned home to his wife. She had spent the previous night at a neighbour's on the advice of police who were called by Eunice Balcombe.

Today Balcombe said in his taped interview: "So I grabbed her, loving her to bits, and we fell down."

Answering questions from DC Mark Newton in the recorded interview, Balcombe said he could not recall whether he put one hand or both hands around his wife's neck.

"I think I grabbed her with my right hand," he said in the interview, in which he sounded quietly confident.

Balcombe said his fingers were on the sides of his wife's neck with his thumbs on her throat.

"I squeezed and I squeezed, I can't tell you what the pressure was," said Balcombe, "I was crying and I wanted her to say sorry and that was it."

He told the officers that his wife was choking and trying to breathe.

"She fell backwards between the computer room and the archway into the living room."

Replying to questions from the Detective Constable, Balcombe said: "I fell on top her. As I fell I had hold of her and as we hit the ground I let go.

"I got up and burst into tears. I touched her, wake up, but she didn't wake up."

Balcombe said: "She was accusing me of being inadequate, it was sexual. She was trying to blame it on me."

Asked why he had grabbed hold of his wife, he said: "I wanted her to wake up to the reality we had problems."

He went on: "I wanted to say sorry, let's work it out and get on with our lives together,"

In the interview he told police: "I did not intend to kill her."

He said he panicked after realising his wife was dead. "I burst into tears and I thought, "shit, what can I do?"

"I panicked and made myself a cup of coffee."

Previously he had told officers called to the house when the body of his wife was discovered: "She is dead. I killed her at about 10am. I was going down to the police station to report it after seeing my kids."

In the taped interview he said: "After trying and trying and you get put down more, things build up."

He said he saw red before he grabbed his wife around the neck.

Asked why he had made the cup of coffee, Balcombe said: "I was devastated, I don't know how. I could not believe what had happened. I did not know what to do."

He said he made the coffee and sat down beside his wife's body.

Home office pathologist Dr Basil Purvue said he first examined the body at Stratton Road and carried out the post mortem at the county hospital in Dorchester.

He said Mrs Balcombe was 5ft 8in and weighed 14st 9lb.

He said there were small bruises by her left eyebrow and her upper lip with some bruising of the lower lip and discolouration of the skin between her jaw and ear.

He explained to the jury that strangulation could cause death by several means including asphyxiation or ventricular fibrillation, which led to the heart stopping.

He said from his examination he believed only moderate pressure had been used on Mrs Balcombe's throat.

He gave the cause of death compression to the neck.